Aliny Godinho (also known as Aliny Mendes) died on Friday, February 8 (Image: Surrey Police)

Sign up to FREE email alerts from SurreyLive - daily

When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they’ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. OurPrivacy Noticeexplains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time.

A mother-of-four told her priest she feared for her life shortly before she was stabbed to death by her estranged husband in front of their three-year-old daughter, a court has heard.

Ricardo Godinho, 41, of Kingston Road, Epsom, stabbed his wife Aliny Godinho, 39, repeatedly on a street near Nonsuch Park in Ewell on February 8. She had been on the school run with three other mothers.

At the opening of his trial for murder on Monday (July 1), prosecutor Kate Lumsdon QC told a jury at Guildford Crown Court that a witness described Mr Godinho as "expressionless" and "cold, calm and collected" while he carried out the stabbing before fleeing in a pickup truck.

He subsequently admitted manslaughter but denied murder. Ms Lumsdon said: "It is the Crown's case that Mr Godinho killed his wife to punish her, out of revenge for leaving him and, as he saw it, keeping him from his children.

"He planned it. He armed himself, lay in wait and killed her in cold blood."

Today's top stories

'I don't believe he would do it in front of the children'

The jury heard that Mrs Godinho, who also went by her maiden name Aliny Mendes, had previously warned police about her husband and mentioned to a friend on the morning of her death that she had told her priest: "My life is under threat." She had previously made a similar statement to her sister, Ms Lumsdon said.

However, Ms Lumsdon said, Mrs Godinho also told the same friend: "I believe if he found me alone in the street now, that he would do it.

"But I don't believe he would do it in front of the children and I am always with them."

Tributes and flowers were left at the scene (Image: Grahame Larter)

Ms Lumsdon said she had first told police about her husband in December 2018, alleging that he had been controlling and psychologically abusive throughout their 17-year relationship, which had ended a month previously.

On one occasion in 2013, she said, Mr Godinho grabbed her throat and ripped up her passport when she tried to leave him. She also claimed he was using an app to track her movements via one of their children's phones.

On December 28, 2018 Mrs Godinho was moved into emergency accommodation in Streatham while her husband was arrested and subsequently bailed on the condition he did not contact her. However, Ms Lumsdon said, he was released under investigation around a month later.

Eventually, on February 7, 2019 Mrs Godinho realised her husband was still monitoring her emails via iCloud. A friend notified the police, who asked to see her on February 8, but Mrs Godinho asked to delay by a day so she could take her children to a party.

"But by then it was too late," Ms Lumsdon said, "Aliny was dead."

'I stabbed her several times'

That afternoon, the prosecutor told the jury, Mr Godinho drove to Nonsuch Park, parking by the entrance opposite a bus stop near the children's school.

Mrs Godinho arrived with their youngest daughter in tow shortly before 3pm, getting off a bus at the stop near the school. As their bus pulled away, CCTV shown to the jury showed Mr Godinho's car crossing the road and mounting the kerb behind Mrs Godinho and the three other mothers.

Ms Lumsdon said: "As the truck pulled up and the women turned to see what was happening they heard Aliny scream. One of them thought she had been hit by the truck.